REIGN OF TERROR: SAC JUNTA ATTACKS ON LIVES AND PROPERTIES IN CHIN STATE AND NORTHWESTERN BURMA/MYANMAR

Description: 

"SUMMARY: This briefing covers the situation of human rights, which were documented by the Chin Human Rights Organization in northwestern Burma/Myanmar, primarily in Chin State, Sagaing and Magwe Regions, between August and September 2021. Under the reign of terror imposed by the junta, hundreds have been arrested, dozens of people killed, injured and thousands exiled in a matter of months. Evidence contained in this briefing demonstrates that there is a clear pattern of serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian laws, which are being committed by the Burmese/Myanmar military junta State Administration Council (SAC) against civilian populations with complete impunity..... This document details human rights violations committed by SAC actors during August and September, 2021. Attacks on the civilian population and civilian infrastructure initiated by the State Administration Council (SAC) junta have become increasingly relentless in western Burma/Myanmar since August 2021. Junta soldiers operating in Chin State and parts of Sagaing and Magwe Regions, under the Northwestern Regional Military Command based in Monywa, have conducted a campaign of unlawful killings, arbitrary arrest and detention, torture and deliberate targeting of civilian and religious infrastructure. During August and September, the numbers of attacks on civilian and religious infrastructure in western Myanmar where Tatmadaw forces have escalated military activities against civil militias from the Chinland Defense Force (CDF) in Chin State and the various Peoples Defense Force (PDFs) operating in Sagaing and Magwe Regions has increased. These conflicts have led to radical violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, resulting in the massacres of civilians and causing civilian casualties, damage and destruction to private and public property. These ongoing violations constitute part of what the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet described as the “human rights catastrophe” in her report to the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva on Thursday, September 23.1 The violations documented by CHRO and other groups have clear patterns in which perpetrators’ actions are demonstratively deliberate and intended to cause harms to civilians. The destruction of lives, livelihood and properties are directly linked to the military scorched earth counter-insurgency policy. The notorious “four-cuts” doctrine, which has been employed in active war zones in ethnic areas for decades, is now being applied in the junta’s military campaigns in urban areas in the fight against local militia groups such as CDF and PDFs in western Myanmar/Burma. In implementing the four-cuts doctrine designed to cut off food, funding, intelligence and recruits to the resistance groups, civilians are deliberately exposed to extreme violence and livelihood destruction. The deliberate and indiscriminate nature in which the policy is being applied in the current conflict circumstance has led to unnecessary deaths, destruction of livelihoods and properties of civilians..."

Source/publisher: 

Chin Human Rights Organization

Date of Publication: 

2021-10-15

Date of entry: 

2021-10-22

Grouping: 

  • Individual Documents

Category: 

Countries: 

Myanmar

Administrative areas of Burma/Myanmar: 

Chin State

Language: 

English

Local URL: 

Format: 

pdf

Size: 

2.03 MB

Resource Type: 

text

Text quality: 

    • Good